The Human Stain by Philip Roth

All I can say is, wow.
Roth is a writer extraordinaire. This book took me a long time to read, and there were times when I was going to give up, actually. I felt like I was not "getting" all of it. But then these passages would pull me in and captivate me. His writing is so good, so deep, so philosophical and thoughtful, insightful.
Those are pretty redundant adjectives, but I can't say enough about the writing. I can't forget a passage about a Vietnam Vet, Les, nor can I forget pages and pages of descriptions of crows. Yes, crows! And then 50 pages later you realize why he elaborated on and on about crows.
Here is a synopsis of the book from ebooks.com:

It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished his most virulent accuser. Coleman Silk has a secret. But it's not the secret of his affair, at seventy-one, with Faunia Farley, a woman half his age with a savagely wrecked past--a part-time farmhand and a janitor at the college where, until recently, he was the powerful dean of faculty. And it's not the secret of Coleman's alleged racism, which provoked the college witch-hunt that cost him his job and, to his mind, killed his wife. Nor is it the secret of misogyny, despite the best efforts of his ambitious young colleague, Professor Delphine Roux, to expose him as a fiend. Coleman's secret has been kept for fifty years: from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman, who sets out to understand how this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, had fabricated his identity and how that cannily controlled life came unraveled. Set in 1990s America, where conflicting moralities and ideological divisions are made manifest through public denunciation and rituals of purification, The Human Stain concludes Philip Roth's eloquent trilogy of postwar American lives that are as tragically determined by the nation's fate as by the "human stain" that so ineradicably marks human nature. This harrowing, deeply compassionate, and completely absorbing novel is a magnificent successor to his Vietnam-era novel, American Pastoral, and his McCarthy-era novel, I Married a Communist.

The Other Americans by Laila Lalami

Waited a long time for this book at the library. Really enjoyed.
I agree with this assessment from NPR:

Carve out some reading time before you pick up Laila Lalami's new novel The Other Americans. You won't want to get up from your chair for some time, maybe even until you've reached the last page. You're in the hands of a maestra of literary fiction, someone who has combined a riveting police procedural with a sensitive examination of contemporary life in California's Mojave Desert region.

It did take me a while to read, however, becuase I am in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, and working MANY hours with teachers helping with distance learning.

But every chance I got, I sunk into my green chair to visit these vivid characters.Now I am going to read another of her books, The Moor's Account

Ghosted by Rosie Walsh

Just the kind of book I needed to read this week.  Not heavy, not political, not depressing. Just a fast read, a little suspense, some romance, some interesting characters. I actually got the audio book out of the library AND the digital version. Mostly I listened to it as I walked. The narrator and narration were good. Here's the Kirkus review:

In Walsh’s American debut, a woman desperately tries to find out why the man she spent a whirlwind week with never called.
Sarah has just separated from her American husband and is visiting her hometown in England when she meets Eddie. He’s kind and charming, and although they only spend one week together, she falls in love. When he has to leave for a trip, she knows they’ll keep in touch—they’re already making plans for the rest of their lives. But then Eddie never calls, and Sarah’s increasingly frantic efforts to contact him are fruitless. Is he hurt? Is he dead? As her friends tell her, there’s a far greater likelihood that he’s just blowing her off—she’s been ghosted. After trying to track Eddie down at a football game, Sarah starts to become ashamed of herself—after all, she’s almost 40 years old and she’s essentially stalking a man who never called her. But as Sarah slowly learns, she and Eddie didn’t actually meet randomly—they both have a connection to an accident that happened years ago, and it may have something to do with why he disappeared. The tension quickly amps up as the secrets of Eddie’s and Sarah’s pasts are revealed, and the truth behind their connection is genuinely surprising and heartbreaking. The barriers between Sarah and Eddie seem insurmountable at times, and although their issues are resolved in a tidy manner, the emotions behind their actions are always believable. Walsh has created a deeply moving romance with an intriguing mystery and a touching portrait of grief at its heart.
A romantic, sad, and ultimately hopeful book that’s perfect for fans of Jojo Moyes.

Interesting that Jojo Moyes is mentioned. I have never read any of her books, but one of my friends has highly recommended Me Before You. Maybe I'll try it. The kind of read that is warranted right now.

Dare Me by Megan Abbott

This is the 3rd book I've read by this author and I really like her style. This one deals with cheer leading....a topic I don't really relate to at all, but Abbot captures the grit of it so well.
From the NYTimes:

At its core, “Dare Me” reveals something very true about the consuming, sometimes ugly, nature of female friendships. But Abbott is also on to something bigger. Addy describes a girl making out with a boy in the hall, “practicing the telling of the moment even as the moment slips from her.” It is this moment of adolescence that “Dare Me” captures so beautifully, the in-­betweenness, “like a thing arrested between coming and going. Like the second before a crouch becomes a bound.” The story of girls old enough for sex but young enough that time still goes by at a crawl. “That was a long time ago,” Addy says about an event at camp. “That was last summer.”

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

A Pulitzer Prize winner....this was my second try at reading it. It's for one of my book clubs. I did enjoy it and really appreciated the writing but in the end, not really my cup of tea. Not enough story or plot for me.  But I certainly got into his writing, characterization, etc.

All This Could Be Yours by Jami Attenberg

This seemed like a very different book for this author.  I recall the Middlesteins being funny. This book was not! But it was powerful.  The reader REALLY hates Victor, the husband who cheats (in many ways), hurts, abuses and doesn't even seem to care!

Love this final paragraph from the NPR review:

Attenberg brings air into this potentially suffocating story with wit, and with occasional digressions into some of the peripheral people the Tuchmans encounter without a thought as they move around post-Katrina New Orleans — a trolley conductor, ferry worker, EMT, and coroner. Initially jarring, these reminders that the people who make the city run have their own histories and troubles underscore the fact that life can be challenging. But they also reassure us of the possibility of not just good in this world but decency.

There There by Tommy Orange

Read this for my book club (#1) and it was powerful! We all agreed about a few things, however.  The ending? Very abrupt.  But I think that was his intent.
Reading this right after Trevor Noah's book was interesting. Many parallels, even though they are VERY different books!
From Westchester Library System, here's a description of what this book is about:

Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame in Oakland. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life together after his uncle's death and has come to work the powwow and to honor his uncle's memory. Edwin Black has come to find his true father. Thomas Frank has come to drum the Grand Entry. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil Red Feather; Orvil has taught himself Indian dance through YouTube videos, and he has come to the Big Oakland Powwow to dance in public for the very first time. Tony Loneman is a young Native American boy whose future seems destined to be as bleak as his past, and he has come to the Powwow with darker intentions.